Everyone's freaking out about the end of Sunday night's 'Game of Thrones'

Warning: There are spoilers ahead if you haven't seen
Sunday's "Game of Thrones."

"Game of Thrones" outdid itself Sunday night with a phenomenal
showdown that everyone can't stop talking about. Any fans who
were previously underwhelmed with season five so far will likely
be eating their words after this.

The episode, titled "Hardhome," featured some great moments with
Arya, Daenerys, Tyrion, and Cersei in the first 30 minutes. But
the entire last half of the episode focused on Jon Snow and the
Wildlings beyond the Wall.

Jon went to Hardhome with
Tormund in order to convince the remaining Wildlings to come
south and live in Westeros. Even though the Night's Watch has a
longstanding and violent rivalry against the Wildlings, Jon knows
the White Walkers are the true enemy. He needs to convince the
Wildlings to come with them, or else they will surely be added to
the army of the dead.

In the book series, we only hear about Hardhome secondhand. A man
sent there to make peace with the Wildlings sends Jon a
letter. It reads:

At hardhome with six ships. Wild seas...Very bad here.
Wildlings eating their own dead. Dead things in the woods...Eight
ravens left. Dead things in the
water. Send help by land, seas wracked by
storms.

Book readers have long wondered what happened at Hardhome, and
Sunday's episode was perhaps the most satisfying book divergence
yet. As writer David Benioff
explained in a feature after the episode aired , "This was an
opportunity to go North of the wall and show the audience
something that is going to be fresh for everyone. Whether you're
a book reader or not a book reader, this is stuff no one has
seen."

Jon arrives at Hardhome, and with Tormund helps gather all
the leaders of the different Wildling tribes. Though there was
some resistance, several thousand of them decide to come with the
Night's Watch. Amidst the chaos of all the Wildlings trying to
get on boats, there is a sudden avalanche of snow and fog from
the cliffs surrounding the fortress.

Almost everyone present realizes something terrible is about to
happen, and a Wildling leader quickly orders the gates to be shut
— locking thousands of people outside with the coming doom.

Soon it is clear the White
Walkers are here, and they've brought their army. The White
Walkers, also referred to as "Others," are capable of reanimating
the dead and using them to kill. These zombified people are
called wights.

This wight is still shoving through a wall despite the
arrow he took to the head.hbogo.com

There are several minutes of
bloody sparring and attacks from all sides. For viewers who have
been let down by lackluster fight sequences in Dorne this season,
this episode completely makes up for it. You can see how the
elaborate set and fight choreography were expertly planned. Jon
in particular has some spectacular moves.

Your browser does not support the video tag.
hbogo.com

Within minutes, an eerie silence descends
over the group of Wildlings and Night's Watch brothers as they
notice four horsemen standing on the cliffs above them. These are
the actual White Walkers, the otherworldly beings who control the
wights below.

This is some great "Four
Horsemen of the Apocalypse" imagery.hbogo.com

Seeing these eerie figures reminds Jon of the bag of dragonglass
he brought with him. Remember how Sam killed a white walker back
in season three? He used a dagger made of obsidian, also called
dragonglass in Westeros. Thinking ahead, he gave Jon a large
supply of daggers to bring with him to Hardhome.

In the books, Sam also did as
much research as he could on other methods used to defeat White
Walkers. Though most of it was legends, he had a hunch the
legends were based in facts. Sam tells Jon about something called
"dragonsteel" that can successfully combat White
Walkers.

So Jon heads towards the
dragonglass daggers, and promptly runs into one of the White
Walkers.

White Walkers bring cold
with them, even when walking through flames.Courtesy HBO

This is one of the few times
we've been given a good, long look at a White Walker. The last
time was when Sam fought, and beat, a White Walker in season
three. This time, we can see their stylized armor and intensely
epic ice swords.

As Jon is grabbing for the
dragonglass, he is pulled backwards and flung away from the White
Walker. His sword, Longclaw, skids away from him. Jon gets up and
skillfully fights against the White Walker, dodging and ducking
then finally managing to grab a nearby sword. When he swings it
against the ice sword, the steel shatters.

Jon swings his blade around and
cuts through the White Walker, killing him.

This is huge. Epic. Monumental
in the world of Westeros. For centuries, any knowledge about the
White Walkers has died away, reduced to myths that no one
believes. Now they have returned, and Jon Snow is leading the
only resistance against them through the Night's Watch and now
with the Wildlings.

First was the crucial discovery
that obsidian weapons would kill the Others, but now we know that
Longclaw can as well. Jon's sword is made from Valyrian steel, a
very rare and expensive metal that used to be forged with
dragonfire in Old Valyria. There are only a handful of known
Valyrian steel swords in Westeros, and Jon is lucky enough to be
the owner of one.

Book readers have theorized
that dragonsteel is the same thing as Valyrian steel, but seeing
Jon test this theory in the midst of an unprecedented White
Walker massacre was an incredible moment.

Above on the cliffs, the
Night's King watches this small moment of resistance with a
curiosity. It is likely that White Walkers don't know about the
existence of Valyrian steel, let alone its powers.

This Night's King character is
also very interesting. We've only seen him once before, in
episode four of season four, when he turned a human baby into a
wight. At the time that episode aired,
fans were confused and surprised to see the title Night's
King crop up.

The first time we saw the
Night's King.Game of Thrones/HBO
screencap

The Night's King watches
as Jon kills a White Walker with valyrian
steelhbogo.com

Jon and his surviving comrades
finally see the futility of remaining at Hardhome any longer.
This is no battle — it's a slaughter. There is even an insane
wave of wights who fling themselves over the edge of the cliff
like something out of a zombie apocalypse movie.

We also get a horrifying shot of
children-turned-wights. They stand, unmoving and silent, for
several seconds. Then they launch towards their prey and
presumably begin eating her alive.

Undead children gave
viewers the chills.Courtesy
HBO

The only way to kill a wight is by burning it. They are
unstoppable otherwise, and Jon needs to get out of there before
it's too late. He runs towards the sea with Tormund, Edd, and the
giant named Wun Wun.

Wun Wun is a book
character that many fans were overjoyed to finally
see.hbogo.com

They reach the boats
successfully, and push off from the dock. Thank goodness wights
and White Walkers apparently don't swim, but it's unclear
why.

The Night King walks to the edge
of the water, as Jon looks out towards the last of the Wildlings
being massacred. Slowly, the Night King raises his
hands.

The Night's King changes
the newly-dead into wights.hbogo.com

He is raising the dead. All the Wildlings who were just killed
have now become wights. In mere minutes, the White Walkers have
doubled their army.

Things have never looked worse
for Jon and the Night's Watch.

This Wildling leader was a
fierce warrior in this episode, before she was killed and turned
into a wight.hbogo.com

The last couple minutes of the
episode were set in near silence, allowing viewers to take in the
magnitude of what had just happened. Since the very first scene
of the entire series, which showed the White Walkers attacking
rangers beyond the Wall, fans have hungered for more information
about these creatures. What do they look like? What weapons do
they use? What happens to the dead when they are turned into
wights? What do they want?

Tonight's episode gave so much
satisfaction to these questions, and at a completely unexpected
moment in the season. Though it didn't answer all of the queries.
Book and show fans alike are still stumped about why exactly the
White Walkers are attacking. Though there are
complex theories out there, it's all just speculation.

So the mystery is still intact,
though the terror levels have definitely been upped. With just
two episodes left, we have a great feeling that this season is
definitely going out with a bang. This particular sequence took
nearly seventeen days to film, according to an EW article that was
published earlier this year. It's hard to know what other
action-packed moments lay ahead, but fans can't wait to see
what's next.